Best buy - zv6000, zd8000 or dell Inspiron 9300

i am looking at getting a new laptop and i would like your feedback as to which one i should go with. i will be using it for web/graphic design and gaming, thanks!

 

Depends. The zv6000 has the best CPU and lowest price, the other two have better GPUs and bigger screens for more money. If you want to be able to run 64-bit WinXP (launches tomorrow) you'll want the zv6000. Up to you.

Hey HP: build an Athlon 64 version of the zd8000. Putting an Intel CPU in a gaming laptop is just stupid. Doubly so in the case of the P4 blast furnace.

 

In case you decide to go with the zv6000, office depot is having a sale this week on CTO Compaq r4000s which is almost the exact same notebook (same specs and from the same company HP). The base model (Sempron 2800+, 32 Mb video card, etc) is $599.99 after rebates. You'll probably want to upgrade the CPU, Screen and Video Card, so that will cost extra, but its still an excellent deal. Build time is 17 days according to the techdepot website, but the deal is for IN STORE purchases only.

 

if your using it for gaming and the likes go with the 9300, but if you dont game or plan on doing any intense 3d apps. then get the zv6000 cause for ppl hat dont do things that are graphix heavy this is a great notebook.

I realy like both but they offer diff. qualitys

 

what some people don't realize though is that the ATI 200M that is available on the zv6000 (a.k.a R4000) is 128mb dedicated, with an ADDITIONAL 128mb configure-able of shared mem., so in essence, it is a configure-able 256mb GPU, not to mention the first to offer DirectX9 Onboard compatability AND PCI-Express, which translates into = additional cards can easily be put in in the near future to increase graphics power. People aren't really aware that although this GPU is derivative of the X300, it is completely re-configured and optimized for AMD Chips exclusively, which should equate to some surprising results, as AMD is often undestimated in their ability to provide these abundantly. I think once the potential power of this GPU is realized, not so many people will reside with skepticism.

************************************iNtEl iZ Ded********************************




AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2GB RAM - 80 GB 5400 HD
ATI 128mb 200M
DVD-RW w/ Dual Layer
WXGA Brightview
Wireless w/ Bluetooth
12 Cell

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

assume whatever you want, i stand by the info I've seen and this was a debate on benchmarks and wrongly stated figures, so I offered some different data, and despite what the "M" actually stands for, the Xpress 200 series GPU is the first to be tailored to AMD chips, although it is still compatible w/ Intel.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2GB RAM - 80 GB 5400 HD
ATI 128mb 200M
DVD-RW w/ Dual Layer
WXGA Brightview
Wireless w/ Bluetooth
12 Cell

 

The skpetical part about those benchies is that it's a number but i can't really connect it to anything. I'm notorious for providing software tweaks to a rig (without overclocking). I'll also force in updated drivers, such as the latest ATI drivers (AKA OMEGA), and remove a lot of things I do not use from start up. And so forth, you get the idea.

While i'm not as optimistic as Sarvaga, I still am optimistic. One thing we all agree on is that the VPU/GPU is the weakest part of this rig.

 

Can someone explain to me why the radeon 200M isn't as great as it sounds? I thought much of the performance of cards were based on its dedicated memory (128mb in this case). Also, from what i understand, doesn't hypermemory allow even more memory to be used from the system memory to process heavy graphics? or.. what exactly is hypermemory? sorry, this new card seems very confusing to me and nobody seems to have done a review on this. thanks.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by brianstretch

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by bOOm

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by AMDemon

 

If you need a new notebook today I would simply find the best A64 based one, depending on needs. ASUS Z80K, Sager 4750 (17" WSXGA+ 1650x1050 screen) or Acer Ferrari 3400, all with MR9700, if you want to play games. ZV6000 or R4000 if you want to be able to customize very good options and features ( exept for GPU ) for a very good price.

I would simply advice against concidering a 32 bit only system anymore for so many reasons. One of the reasons is Microsoft itself. http://notebookforums.com/showpost.php?p=843704&postcount=29

 

I am anxious to see if any of the other big OEM's are going to release anything as well AMDemon, (Asus, and Averatec especially - as I'm not too familiar w/ Toshiba and Dell's planned processor usage in the near future in regards to AMD), but it would be interesting to see if anyone else is going to try and compete w/ HP/Compaqs offers on the zv6000/R4000, I config'd the system I ordered for 1797-30$ Rebate, which was 100$ less than the zv6000 that I had ordered like 3 1/2 weeks ago w/ not near as amazing options- so a competing notebook to rival the zv6000 would have to make some unforseen options available in order to top the monster that HP just released i think, but we'll have to wait and see!



AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2GB RAM - 80 GB 5400 HD
ATI 128mb 200M
DVD-RW w/ Dual Layer
WXGA Brightview
Wireless w/ Bluetooth
12 Cell

 

The following is the 1st that I've heard about ANY notebooks featuring the Turion64...http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543_12729~95652,00.html

Anyone know of ANY others, if so...please post urls.

P.S. I read elsewhere on this forum that Fujitsu had some coming out, too.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by bOOm

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by AMDemon

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by bOOm

 

I would have gotten a ZV6k if they had put a decent video card in it. I had an x6000 and was disappointed in the 3d ability. So I wasn't about to waste my time with the integrated junk.
If a company releases a AMD 64 notebook with a good videocard (6800 or X700 X800) I would be sending my 9300 back quick. As long as it was around the $1500 range. I don’t think that’s going to be happening though.


Tim


Dell Inspiron 9300, Pentium M 2GHz, 1GB 533MHz DDR2, 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 6800, 17" LG WUXGA+, 60GB HDD (7200rpm), Sony DW-56A DVD+-RW DL

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by timak

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga
To anyone who still might be a little confused about the ATI 200M GPU's, you can be assured that the card is 128mb dedicated and the HyperMemory technology allows an additional 128mb of shared mem to be used for graphics processing power as well, technically making it a 256mb card. By doing this ATI was able to make the card much less expensive because the power essentially depends (50% of it at least) on how much RAM the computer has. So it obviously won't perform quite as well as regular dedicated 256mb GPU's, but when the AMD 4000+ is factored in, I optimistically believe that the performance will be nearly the same as a regular P4 w/ a 256mb GPU in it (especially w/ RAM in excess of a GB). Heres a few links if anyone wants to read about the Hypermemory technology itself on ATI's page or see how HP describes the Hypermem. technology on the zv6000 overview page (about halfway down):
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

The mobility 9700 is about 30% faster than the x300(the fully dedicated version). The x700 is about twice as fast as the mobility 9700. The x800 and Go6800 is close to twice as fast as the x700, and the Go6800 Ultra is 40% faster than the Go6800.

Almost ALL games are gpu-bound, and not CPU bound. This is not an opinion, it has been proven time and time again in hundreds of tests. Unless you like to play Quake 3 at 640x480 resolution and enjoy seeing a fps of 400, the 4000+ will make absolutely NO difference. At any rate when it comes to gaming, the PM holds its own against the AMD64. This also has been shown on multiple # of times.

AMD chips have the advantage of built-in memory controller, which helps thoughput somewhat, but it's performance will be NO WHERE NEAR that of a fully dedicated GPU. simple as that.

cheers,

yass

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by timak

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by yassarian

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by yassarian

The mobility 9700 is about 30% faster than the x300(the fully dedicated version). The x700 is about twice as fast as the mobility 9700. The x800 and Go6800 is close to twice as fast as the x700, and the Go6800 Ultra is 40% faster than the Go6800.

Almost ALL games are gpu-bound, and not CPU bound. This is not an opinion, it has been proven time and time again in hundreds of tests. Unless you like to play Quake 3 at 640x480 resolution and enjoy seeing a fps of 400, the 4000+ will make absolutely NO difference. At any rate when it comes to gaming, the PM holds its own against the AMD64. This also has been shown on multiple # of times.

AMD chips have the advantage of built-in memory controller, which helps thoughput somewhat, but it's performance will be NO WHERE NEAR that of a fully dedicated GPU. simple as that.

cheers,

yass
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Care to include a link or anything to back all those hefty statements up? I don't know how you can claim all of that when the P4 (EE even) v. 4000+ match-up has been done w/ the same exact GPU's and the results have been conclusively in favor of the AMD. Here's a few such matchup's-See here:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc1LDI=
http://www.guru3d.com/article/processor/193/6/
notice that they even gave the Intel setup an edge by putting in a slightly better GPU on the Hardoc page, but on the guru3d page, they used the exact same GPU's and the results still speak for themselves. Also, its not JUST the gpu's, its also the mainboard chipset- and is anyone actually hearing me when I say that the 200M is 128mb Dedicated PLUS 128mb shared (which, according to ATI, this additional 128mb of shared mem. is strictly devoted to the GPU, it is not useable by any other processes on the OS)......the core is developed from the x300, but it is not just another version of that GPU, you are mistaken if you think that.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2GB RAM - 80 GB 5400 HD
ATI 128mb 200M
DVD-RW w/ Dual Layer
WXGA Brightview
Wireless w/ Bluetooth
12 Cell

....ye of little faith...

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga
Care to include a link or anything to back all those hefty statements up? I don't know how you can claim all of that when the P4 (EE even) v. 4000+ match-up has been done w/ the same exact GPU's and the results have been conclusively in favor of the AMD. Here's a few such matchup's-See here:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc1LDI=
http://www.guru3d.com/article/processor/193/6/
notice that they even gave the Intel setup an edge by putting in a slightly better GPU on the Hardoc page, but on the guru3d page, they used the exact same GPU's and the results still speak for themselves
<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

OK I'm gonna assume that you *DO* know the difference between the Pentium 4, vs. the Pentium M. Did these sites test the PM? No. Are those *DESKTOP* values relavent to LAPTOP performance? Not really.

Lets take a more DIRECT comparison, shall we? This is hot-off the press review of the upcoming Turion chipset.
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=turion64&page=1

GAMING-wise, a 1.8ghz PM pretty much outperforms the 2.0ghz o/ced MT-34. Everything else wise the PM either hold its own, or performs better clock-for-clock. Notice too, that the PM draws less power as well.

Anyway there are a whole SLEW of information available on the topic, Hardocp is a good place to start -- they link a lot of other place's data as well. Don't get me wrong, the AMD64 is a great processor, but the turion is nothing more than an undervolted, underclocked, underperformed version of their full-blown cousins. Wait till the crop of dual-core machines come out, THEN we'll see some real performance gains -- assuming softwares are written to take advantage of them. lol

cheers,

yass

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by yassarian

 

Hey everyone,

I just got my notebook last night and I was playing some games on it and it seemed to perform not as good as my old desktop which was an athlon 2400, 512 pc2100, ati 9600le - 128bit. I thought this laptop was going to perform as good, if not better than my old laptop, can someone help me run this 3dmark stuff that I keep hearing about. I want some quantifiable numbers.

Thanks

HP Pavilion zv6000; AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz); 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800); 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB); 60 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive; DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive; 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM); 54g(TM) Integ. Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth; 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery;

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by churro

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by yassarian

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by maxpower
Someone already posted a 3dmark05 of 672 for the x200m.

How did you get 3300 stock from the 6800go in the 9300? Any different drivers? I think everyone else gets around 2900-3000 stock.<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

Yes first thing I did upon receiving the 9300, after making sure everything works, was reformat the HD. []

I installed the latest Nvidia video driver from www.video2go.com.

And voila! lol

It is important to know that video drivers are a MAJOR factor in how well your video card performs. Sometimes a simple driver upgrade can make your performance go up by as much as 20%! In fact, that was what has happened when the Radeon 9800 first came out a few years ago -- it's performance was average at best, and ATI are notorious for lagging in driver updates. When they finally updated the driver, ppl were seeing their gaming performance jump by 20-30% with a simple driver update! If you want to extract maximum performance, I would always recommend upgrade to the latest drivers.

cheers,

yass

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by churro

 

who the hell cares about the PM? You know what...this argument isn't even worth the time it takes to type this because its all estimation anyway, so I'll end this nonsense here and wait for my computer to get some real ****ing results. I've seen benchmarks on other forums of a 64mb X300 that posted 710 in 3dmark05 (w/ only 512 of RAM), so I don't believe those other scores for a second.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+
2GB RAM - 80 GB 5400 HD
ATI 128mb 200M
DVD-RW w/ Dual Layer
WXGA Brightview
Wireless w/ Bluetooth
12 Cell

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

I will be laughing so hard when he gets his pc and runs 3dmark05 and has to eat his words.

like I said before the specs are great withe the exception of the GPU..

 

To anyone who cares,
I just ran my 3dmark05 without the omega drivers or whatnot and I got a score of 767.

To anyone who doesn't care,
please ignore this message


HP Pavilion zv6000; AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz); 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800); 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB); 60 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive; DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive; 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM); 54g(TM) Integ. Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth; 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery;

 

hmm, why the difference in numbers?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by churro

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Sarvaga

 

There are two reasons to buy the zd8000: the 17" widescreen and the high-end GPU for 3D games (irrelevant for 2D work like Photoshop). Otherwise the R4000 is a much better notebook: better CPU, quieter, way less expensive, way better battery life.

 

I played DooM 3 on my ZD8000 when i had it and it played fine no problems looked and ran smooth

 

Have you personally experienced doom3, half-life2, ut2004 etc on the zd8000 or zv6000? If not, maybe you can refer me to a registered user of this forum who has already recieved a zv6000 with the 4000+ w/ radeon 128 deticated gpu? I'm dying to hear what they have to say.

-pc

 

You said you HAD it. Why did you choose not to keep it? :|

 

I'm not sure why people continue to use 3DMark 2005 to measure the performance of a low end card. 700's? 800's? What's the difference?? That is a horrible score no matter how you look at it. 3Dmark has always been intended to stress the GPU in the way games of "tomorrow" will. As far as FPS is concerned, and backwards compatibility to DirectX 7 and 8, 3dMark is way more stressful on a gpu than Doom III or Half Life 2.

I want to see benchmarks in REAL WORLD performance. Not only do I want to know what the FPS is in certain resolutions, I also want to know at what resolution and graphical settings it would take to be able to run the games I want at the acceptable frame rates. 3DMark 2005 is just way too beefy. The difference between 700 and 1000 could be a WORLD of difference in Real world performance. It could be the difference between running at medium quality vs. high quality...

Also, most people here don't understand that the processor and ram don't have much to do with 3dMark 2005 scores. the difference between a 3500+...and PM 1.6, or a P4 3.0 would be negligible (-sp?) And the difference between 512M of ram and 1024M of ram is not even present.

Pretty good example:

http://service.futuremark.com/servlet/Index?pageid=/orb/projectsearch&page=1

Notice how the difference between CPU speeds from 2400MHz to 2900MHz are all over the board. And people with 512..1024..and even 2048 appears to make any difference. Even with a 6800GT for desktops, the bottleneck is the GPU and not the processor. If 3DMark measured AI and physics capabilities..then you would have completely different results...but if that were the case..then it would be called "3DMark" now would it...


However.... in 3dMark 2001..there would be a definitive difference. If you really want to judge the difference in performance of different cpu's and different amount of memory, try 3dMark2001. Going from a XP 2500+ to a AMD 64 gave me almost 5000 more points in 3dmark 2001. However I my 3dmark 2005 scores stayed the same.

I agree with almost everything yassarian states however he contradicts himself. In one post he states that video card drivers make the biggest difference..but in another states the 200M will never be a performer. Give ATi some time to get their tweaking on and then lets revisit this theory. I have a feeling there is some good headroom for this chipset to mature. But if Sarvaga thinks that he is going to see a HUGE increase in numbers just because he is getting a AMD 64 4000+ and 1G of ram..he is sadly mistaken.

Sarvaga...run your benches in 3Dmark 2001..and then compare with the people running a 3500+ w/ 512M of ram..and you will definitely have a score to gloat about.

 

you lost me...

 

I want some raw data from some of these people who got theirs. there has to be SOMEONE who plays computer games and is willing to write a short review. it's been quite some time now and we're tired of waiting for our notebooks, give us some love and start writing.